writing and knitting and the randomness of life

Ten on Tuesday ~ Childhood Memories

Today’s 10 on Tuesday prompt is “Ten Things You Miss From Your Childhood.” There are some obvious ones, and I’ll probably include at least a couple of those on this list. It’s hard not to. But I want to stick to mostly unique things for this one, if I can, mostly to see how many (if any) of my blog readers have the same kind of fond memories about childhood as I have.

Anyway, without further ado, here are

Ten Things I Miss From My Childhood

1. Girl Scout cookie time! When I was a little older as a scout, my family used to host the cookie drop-off for our neighborhood. This meant that in addition to having my troop’s cookies (my parents were the troop leaders) at cookie time, we’d have the WHOLE AREA’S SUPPLY OF GIRL SCOUT COOKIES IN OUR GARAGE. Heaven for a cookie monster like me. Plus, we’d have cookie forts (not really) in the garage, and I remember kinda playing among them. Espeically when someone came to pick up cookies. It was like a massive game of Tetris. I loved it.

2. Bridge night. My parents used to have a group they played bridge with on a monthly (or was it twice-monthly?) basis. My sister and I had a great time when this happened. Either my parents would go to someone’s house for bridge (and we loved this once I was old enough to be the babysitter… I don’t remember how well we liked our babysitter) or they would host bridge at our house. Well, both had their high points. If bridge was at our house, my sister and I could “sneak” downstairs and collect goodies to snack on. Or, if our parents were out for the night, we slept on the sofa bed, made forts out of the pillows, and watched “Star Wars” or “The 12 Dancing Princesses” (Fairy Tale Theatre version with Shelly Duval) and stayed up late. Good fun was had by all.

3. Not worrying about money. This is one of the obvious ones. Yes, I knew money didn’t grow on trees. I knew there were things I wanted but we couldn’t afford. But we were comfortable, and I wasn’t the one doing the work or the budgeting to make sure we stayed comfortable. I miss that innocence.

4. Camping! I still love nature, and hiking, and being outdoors. But I no longer love camping. Sleeping on the ground no longer holds its appeal. Going days without showering (because you’re in the backcountry and there are no showers) make me shudder now, instead of being an excuse to play in the river like I used to consider it. I might have to try tent camping. Or perhaps RV camping (though I don’t want an RV). Because I need to find a way to enjoy nature without making myself miserably uncomfortable to do it. I don’t know how my parents managed when I was a kid.

5. Dreaming big. I’m trying to get this one back into my repetoire. I want to dream big. I have publishing dreams, and want to be able to make a living off of my writing. But the type of dreams you have as an adult include silly things like reality, whereas childhood dreams don’t bother with that kind of thing. You want something as a kid? You dream it up. No worries about the pesky “how”. Just a focus on the “what”. I want to get that back.

6. My metabolism. (Another fairly obvious one.) I could eat whatever I wanted when I was a kid, and it never showed. Granted, I was more active than I am now. But that’s not all of it. Oh well.

7. School. More specifically, the fun bits of school. Like trips to the planetarium. Or learning about weird science stuff. Or reenacting snippets of history. (I don’t miss the PE stuff. Or the popularity contests.) I miss the fun-yet-bizzare projects, the book reports, the collaborative team assignments. So yeah, I miss the GOOD BITS of school. And I had some really good teachers, so I’m lucky in that respect. But I think most of all, I miss shopping for new school supplies in the late summer. I am, and have always been, a stationary addict.

8. The ice cream truck. I don’t know if it’s where I live, or if I no longer am tuned into the ice cream truck, but I just don’t seem to hear it much anymore. And I never go get ice cream even when I do hear it. I miss how exciting it was as a kid, trying to run out to meet the truck with enough money for ice cream before it got away from you. It always made the treats seem that much more fun.

9. The People Mover and Skyway at Disneyland. Don’t get me wrong, I love many of the changes at Disneyland. But those two attractions have gone to Yesterland, and I miss them. I want them back. Cheesy though they were, I loved them.

10. The Commodore 64 and its games. Again, they were cheesy. But they were fun, and we had good times playing with them. I would love to have access to that again, so I could revisit some of the silliness. I think we still have the Commodore 64 (somewhere), but there’s no telling if it still works. I think I’ll have to look into an emulator.

What about you? Is there anything particular that you miss from your childhood?

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